This is a session that will yield the current and future product development steps needed to put features in production, or "concept-to-cash".

2022-04-30

Value Stream Mapping

Outcome

This is a session that will yield the current and future product development steps needed to put features in production, or “concept-to-cash”.

Its main utility is to:

• Expose value at risk / increase the realization of unrealized value
• Understand how the organization manages change
• Highlight system constraints
• Provide a measurable basis for optimization
• Introduce organizational change based on findings

Audience

All stakeholders, and all members of the product and support teams. Typically needed roles:

• Application, Business, Project, and Product managers
• Application and Platform architects
• Development and QA leads
• Infrastructure lead
• Performance lead
• UX lead
• Deployment, and Ops leads
• Legal and Compliance leads
• Security lead
• SEO & Social Media Rep
• CAB rep

When to use

Use this prior to any planning and commitment sessions, as it will inform the teams about the effort needed to put features into production.

Activity

Participants describe the steps needed to conceive, and deploy a feature to satisfy a customer’s request.

Preparation

• Day 1: Morning: Kickoff, Prime Directive, Retro, Hopes-and-Fears, start Current–state VSM Afternoon: Continued

• Days 2 & 3: Mornings: Org/Tech deep-dive & Future-state VSM Afternoons: Continued

• Day 3: Analysis of VSM, Retro & next steps.

Process

Select which process to map. Define the extent of the process to be covered. Optimally, it would be “concept to cash” to see the end-to-end flow of work.

Prep:

• Agree on ground rules.
• Establish an agenda that takes people’s obligations into account.
• Repeat the Prime Directive to ensure that people feel safe.
• To facilitate flow, defer collecting details through breakout sessions as needed.
• On average, a thorough VSM session takes between one and three days, depending on people’s availability and system breath.

For the session:

• Decide on the bounds of the map.
• Discuss and document the process steps.
• Document the measurements reported.
• Reflect on optimization for the future state.
• Document the future state.
• Create actionable steps to implement the future state.
• Repeat in a few months and incorporate learning.

Measurements:

• Wait (wt): The time it takes from submission of a request till work starts.
• Value added (v): The effort time it takes to fulfill a request.
• Unneeded non value-add (u): The time spent on irrelevant tasks.
• Needed non value-add (n): The time spent on compliance tasks.
• %FPCA (p): The rate at which incoming requests are deemed sufficiently correct for work to begin.
• Lead time (l): The time it takes to fulfill a request (wt+v).
• Waste (w): Time not spent on value-adding tasks (l - v).
• Efficiency (e): Value added time as ratio of elapsed time and lead time (v/w).
• True Efficiency (te): FPCA factored in (v/p)

Potential improvement steps:

Group size

Everyone, preferably physically present, or working on an online whiteboard.

Timing

Depending on the size of the effort, the number of components and the width of the goal-posts, this may take between 2 and 4 days.

Example

Notes

Find a balance:

• Selecting a limited scope may lead to misinformed local optimization.
• Selecting a large scope will be rewarding, but logistically challenging.